“Oh, my good doctor, you must be blind or an utter fool. I thought every one knew by now that I loathe my husband.”
“What?” shouted Dr. Ramsay; then thinking Bertha was unwell: “Come, come, I see you want a little medicine, my dear. You’re out of sorts, and like all women you think the world is consequently coming to an end.”
Bertha sprang from the sofa. “D’you think I should speak like this if I hadn’t good cause? Don’t you think I’d conceal my humiliation if I could? Oh, I’ve hidden it long enough; now I must speak. Oh God, I can hardly help screaming with pain when I think of all I’ve suffered and hidden. I’ve never said a word to any one but you, and now I can’t help it. I tell you I loathe and abhor my husband and I utterly despise him. I can’t live with him any more, and I want to go away.”
Dr. Ramsay opened his mouth and fell back in his chair; he looked at Bertha as if he expected her to have a fit. “You’re not serious?”
Bertha stamped her foot impatiently. “Of course I’m serious. Do you think I’m a fool too? We’ve been miserable for years, and it can’t go on. If you knew what I’ve had to suffer when every one has congratulated me, and said how pleased they were to see me so happy. Sometimes I’ve had to dig my nails in my hands to prevent myself from crying out the truth.”
Bertha walked up and down the room, letting herself go at last. The tears were streaming down her cheeks, but she took no notice of them. She was giving full vent to her passionate hatred.
“Oh, I’ve tried to love him. You know how I loved him once—how I adored him. I would have laid down my life for him with pleasure. I would have done anything he asked me; I used to search for the smallest indication of his wishes so that I might carry them out. It overjoyed me to think that I was his abject slave. But he’s destroyed every vestige of my love, and now I only despise him, I utterly despise him. Oh, I’ve tried to love him, but he’s too great a fool.”
The last words Bertha said with such force that Dr. Ramsay was startled.
“My dear Bertha!”
“Oh, I know you all think him wonderful. I’ve had his praises thrown at me for years. But you don’t know what a man really is till you’ve lived with him, till you’ve seen him in every mood and in every circumstance. I know him through and through, and he’s a fool. You can’t conceive how stupid, how utterly brainless he is.... He bores me to death!”